In conventional hand razors, a razor blade is mounted in the shaving head which is carried at the end of a handle normally grasped by the user's hand. Before shaving, the user conventionally applies shaving-associated materials such as lathers, creams, gels and the like, to the face or body portions to be shaved. Such materials are typically supplied in large, relatively heavy (from a traveller's point of view) multiple serving plastic and/or metallic containers. Since shaving is most often carried out in semi-closed rooms of high humidity (bathrooms and showers), such containers become slippery and difficult to manipulate when the user's hands become wet. Further, no one likes to carry excess weight on a trip. It makes little sense to carry a razor, shaving foam can, and after-shave lotion of weighing on the order of 22-30 ounces on an overnight or 2-day trip. The cans are bulky and difficult to store, especially where luggage space is limited. Cans and lotion bottles can leak in the luggage, especially at low pressure in airplane baggage compartments.
Many relatively successful attempts have been made to provide a handle or other means in the razor which incorporates a reservoir for a lather forming material or for a lotion. Examples of such patents include U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,942, (Denigman) having separate compartments for gels and lotions; U.S. Pat. No. 4,433,483 (Lazarus) incorporating an aerosol spray can in the handle; U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,643, (Cataudalla) showing a renewable housing for the shaving gel; U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,361 (Demars), showing a tube squeezer for shaving lotion; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,146 (Allbeck), for a handle formed of a flexible tube which itself constitutes the reservoir of the shaving cream.
These razors also suffer from several drawbacks. For example: some razors do not provide enough lather, the reservoir having been overly used in prior occasions; another requires the handle to be flexible in order to squeeze out the shaving material, resulting in difficulty and danger in use when the handle becomes too flexible; still others require the handle and the shaving head to be mechanically disengaged before the shave-associated materials can be used. Also, they are complex and can become easily damaged to the point of inoperativeness if dropped, a common occurrence when handled with wet, soapy hands. Accordingly, there is a need for a simple, cheap-to-manufacture, single-use, shaving system that is lightweight, disposable, non-bulky, and contains in a single package all that is needed for shaving.